Restrooms in many commercial establishments provide automatic water turn-on and shutoff via a sensor to eliminate the need to turn water faucets on via unsanitary hands and turn off the contaminated water facets to minimize the spread of bacteria or other diseases. The problem with automated water faucets is that they only serve to control the water usage between users since the facilities of the restrooms do not automatically dispense of cleaning fluids. Moreover, to dry the user's hands, the user must touch an activation button of a hand drying machine or utilize the disposable hand towels of the restroom. Therefore, the efforts to minimize the spread of bacteria and other disease with the use of automated water dispensing is futile since the user must touch the cleaning fluid (soap) dispensing device. Additionally, the use of disposable hand towels of the restroom can be wasted if an excessive amount of disposable hand towels are utilized by the user.
Several devices have been patented which are aimed at hand washing and drying devices.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,522,411, issued to Johnson, entitled "HAND WASHING AND DRYING EQUIPMENT UNIT" discloses a portable hand washing and drying unit including a housing having a opening for receiving the hands of the user. The opening of the housing is closed via a door when not in use. The hand washing and drying chamber of the housing is provided with a cleaning liquid reservoir and an electrically powered fan for providing a flow of air to dry the hands. The user manually operates a valve to dispense the cleaning liquid and manually operates a switch to turning on the fan for drying the hands.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,606,085, issued to Davies, entitled "HAND WASHING DEVICE" discloses a electro mechanical-electronic circuit that is provided with time elements which are initiated by the flow of water to dispense of uncontaminated skin degerming products in a proper quantity. The hand washing device has a wash cycle and a rinse cycle and a emollient timer triggered after the rinse cycle to dispense of an emollient.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,310, issued to Lienhard, entitled "WASHSTAND DEVICE" discloses a hand washing device which is triggered by a light barrier. The hand washing device comprises a control system for regulating the moistening, washing, rinsing and drying stages of the washing process.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,336,619, entitled, "HAND WASHER AND DRIER MOUNTING STRUCTURE" and 4,295,233, entitled "AUTOMATIC HAND WASHER AND DRYER", to Hinkel et al., disclose a hand washing and drying device having a push button device for controlling the automatic delivery of warm water for a predetermined time and a push button device for controlling the automatic delivery of hand drying air for a preselected period of time.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,145,769, issued to MacFarlane et al., entitled "AUTOMATIC HAND WASHING AND DRYING APPARATUS" discloses a hand washing and drying apparatus including a first manually operable control device for causing operation of a solenoid operated valve to deliver hand washing water directly into a bowl for a preselected period of time. A second manually operable control device is provided for causing operation of a forced air drying structure to provide hand drying air to the bowl.
While each of the above hand washing and drying devices function as desired, none of them have an enclosed hand washing chamber wherein the housing has a front wall having first and second openings for receiving therethrough the right and left hands of the user wherein the first and second openings are covered with a first and second flexible rubber gaskets, respectively. Furthermore, the above devices do not provide a housing which further comprises a sloped top wall made of clear and transparent material to allow the user to visually inspect the hand washing and drying processes.
As will be seen more fully below, the present invention is substantially different in structure from that of the prior hand washing and drying devices.